1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to print schedule control equipment, a print schedule control method, and a program therefor. More specifically, this invention relates to print schedule control equipment for executing schedule control of a device used for a regular print job and a proof print job based on a request of printing, a print schedule control system therefor, a print schedule control method therefor, and a program therefor.
2. Description of the Related Art
Conventionally, there are commercial printers (hereinafter, printing contractor) who generate printed matters on requests from customers of individual users and business enterprises. Each of such printing contractors run a business of receiving provision of print data (original copy) and instructions of a print format, the number of copies, a date of delivery, etc. from a customer, forming a printed matter, and delivering it to the customer. These printing contractors are carrying out their businesses using large-scale equipment, such as offset reproduction printing machines known from long ago.
In these days, as printing apparatuses (hereinafter referred to as a printer) of electrographic and ink jet printers are becoming more high-speed and more high-quality, there is also a form of business organization called “copy service”, “printing service”, “print on demand (POD) center,” etc. capable of outputting and delivering in a short time.
A request of printing to these printing businesses is done as follows: the user sends a manuscript written on paper or an electronic medium, such as FD (floppy® disk), MO (magneto-optical disc), CD (compact disk)-ROM (read only memory), etc. and a printing instruction (order instruction) on which the number of print copies of the manuscript, a bookbinding method, an appointed date of delivery, etc. are written to a printing company by mail or directly.
In addition, a system whereby the user gives an order of printing and sends a manuscript on line through the Internet or an intranet (a printing contractor receiving them similarly) has been put to practical use. The printing contractor receives a user's request and forms in-house printing instructions. Then the printing contractor performs printing with a printer connected to a work computer and bookbinding according to the printing instruction and delivers the formed printed matter to the customer to complete operations.
These printing contractors that perform printing entrusted from users must complete printing with stable quality in time for an appointed date of delivery surely. Further, in a large-scale printing center, two or more operators have to process sequentially a lot of printing requests (orders) in parallel using various and versatile printers and work computers. Therefore, resources of human workers (operators who conducts operations), equipment, etc. must be utilized effectively as much as possible. That is, it becomes important how to build up a time table (schedule) that can utilize the resources at their maximum, how to run the schedule, and how to put it into automatization considering an appointed date of delivery and the cost.
However, conventionally, at the time of reception of a new order or alteration of an existing order, each operator is requested to consider a processing procedure (workflow) based on his/her experience, adjust schedules of resources, inform persons in charge of necessary information, and manage printing by means of a hand-written schedule (reservation table) and the like. That is, since printing was carried out entirely by human work, there were problems that it was extremely tedious and inefficient, giving much load to operators conducting print processing, and the work was not automatized. In addition, there is a problem of increase in cost (time and consumable supplies) due to occurrence of non-conformal printed matters that could not be delivered due to operator's human error in setting.
Nowadays, these fields are actively introducing a system that automatically creates and controls schedules of using resources with a computer, and software. Moreover, as shown in JP-A No. 306655/2001 and JP-A No. 63005/2002, the following systems are also being considered: a system that supports and automatizes scheduling of resources, which is the most time-consuming process step; and a system that automatizes print processing.
This scheduling system keeps a plural pieces of order information (print appearance, number of copies, paper size, print data, appointed date of delivery, etc.) and resource information (load situations of operators, capabilities and working situations of apparatuses, such as printer). When a new order comes out, the system automatically creates and manages an optimal schedule of print jobs based on information currently kept. When alteration occurs in conditions of existing orders, print jobs, situations of resources (fault of a printer etc.), the systems automatically conducts readjustment based on schedules of print jobs associated with it. And the system executes print jobs automatically according to created and controlled schedules.
Conventionally, in the case where print jobs are automatically scheduled and executed in a scheduling system, if printing is started without various confirmation operations and mistakes are found after completion of the printing, a lot of wastes may be generated in printing time (occupied time of a printer), operator's working hours, consumable supplies, adjustment work for reprinting, etc., which leads to inefficiency and increase in the cost. That is, when the scheduling system executes automatic print jobs, it is important to confirm in advance the contents of data (conformity to its order), incompleteness of data (missing and deformation), print results (setting of quality and output).
However, with preview display on a host, it is impossible to obtain completely the confirmation of print setting, print quality, location of printed letters (page layout of front location and back location in the case of double-sided printing). Therefore, one of the most assured methods to obtain confirmation is proof printing (printing one copy or a few copies for trial) performed in an environment in which the printing will be executed finally as confirming means. This is an operation step that is practiced surely as a basic rule in the field where high-volume printing is executed and/or print quality is considered.
Conventionally, printing contractors can perform printing work surely and efficiently introducing a scheduling system as described above after performing proof printing to confirm that there is no problem in the printed matter. Moreover, the scheduling system mitigates operator's working load and improves the quality of the printed matters.
However, the conventional scheduling system does not consider specially schedule management of proof print jobs. In this proof printing, any devices (printers and finishing apparatuses) may be used to obtain printed matters in a sense of simply obtaining printed matters. However, when the operator wishes to confirm particular parts that will be different depending on devices such as color impression, locations of staples, etc., the device that will process the regular print job must be used for the proof printing. However, since conventionally there did not exist means for scheduling the proof printing and regular printing in a cooperative manner, it is necessary for the operator to conduct following works: scheduling the regular print job in the future; designating devises; and subsequently performing proof printing with the designated devises. Moreover, there is a case where a target printer is being used by other jobs in performing proof printing, the proof print job cannot be registered in the schedule. Consequently, it becomes necessary to alter a schedule of automatic regular print job, causing a drop in the working efficiency.
Moreover, the conventional scheduling system determines the automatic schedule (print start and end times) of the regular print job simply considering a print processing time required for a part of the printed matter, and does not consider working hours for the operator to confirm a result of the proof print and, as needed, to alter the print setting and adjust print data. For example, when an automatic regular print job is scheduled and proof printing is completed just before the schedule, the automatic regular print job will be executed without reflecting the confirmed result of the proof print. Moreover, it is necessary to alter a schedule of the automatic regular print job in order that the operator confirms the print result in advance. Therefore, in order to conduct automatic scheduling of proof printing, it is necessary to give time allowance between the schedule of proof printing and that of the regular print job. Consequently there is a problem that without its consideration, the effect of the proof printing itself is low and it might degrade working efficiency.
Moreover, the conventional scheduling system does not consider influence of the proof printing on the quality of other automatic regular print job. For example, a printed matter of order A for printing 400 copies of color brochures each having 10 pages counts 4000 sheets in total. If this job is executed as one print job, the print processing will be stopped when printed papers reach the maximum loading number of papers (3000 sheets) for the outlet of a color printer. Moreover, regarding other print jobs, the color printer becomes unusable, which is inefficient. For this reason, the color printer is scheduled to output an automatic regular print job A1 of 200 copies (2,000 sheets) between 1300 and 1400 and an automatic regular print job A2 of 200 copies (2,000 sheets) between 1500 and 1600. The printing will be done in a mode where the operator is expected to remove the printed matter of the automatic regular print job A1 from the outlet during a time between 1400 and 1500.
Here, it is assumed that a print order B of a color manual is scheduled in the same color printer and the operator schedules a proof print job BP in a time between 1400 and 1500 considering only a print processing time for a part of the printed matter. Here, for this proof print job BP, it is further assumed that an attribute directing proof printing after calibration (process of conducting color compensation of the printer) is set.
Then the color printer executes the automatic regular print job A1 (printing), performs the proof print job BP after conducting calibration, and subsequently executes the automatic regular print job A2 (printing). As a result, due to the calibration of the proof print job BP, the printed matter of the automatic regular print job A1 and the printed matter of the automatic regular print job A2 that must exhibit the similar color impression originally will exhibit different color impressions. That is, there is a problem that the print job of proof printing affects the quality of other print jobs.
Moreover, the conventional scheduling system does not consider relation with other print jobs (procedures, steps, etc.). For example, for the purpose of reduction of the cost and speed-up of printing, there is often used a mode in which only a cover (back cover) is printed with a color printer and the text is printed with a monochrome printer, and a color printed matter and a monochrome printed matter are saddle-stitched for bookbinding in a mixed mode finally. When a printing center receives a manuscript of an order (print order C) of forming 300 copies of a seminar material in this form, first only 300 copies of its front cover (back cover) are printed. After completion of printing with a color printer, the printed matter of the front cover (back cover) is loaded at the inserter of a monochrome printer (the inserter is a feeding slot on which a paper to be inserted into an arbitrary position of a printed matter is loaded. The inserter can be set to an arbitrary feeding stage on which print papers are loaded. Next, in a monochrome printer, when one copy of the text is printed, the front cover (or back cover) printed in color for one copy is fed from the inserter to incorporate with text papers and is subjected to saddle stitching for bookbinding to complete one copy of printed matter. After that, the similar processing is repeated to complete printing of 300 copies.
In the case of a workflow where a printed matter is completed using a plurality of printers in a cooperated manner (consecutively) in printing procedures (steps) like this, it is also necessary to perform proof printing in the similar work procedures (steps). Because of this, in the case where schedules of all printers (in the example described above, two) used in the work procedures (steps) are not associated (i.e., proof printing of a print job assigned to a color printer and proof printing of a print job assigned to a monochrome printer are scheduled independently), there occurs a waiting time when the printing proceeds to the next step of a confirmation step or the like. Moreover, there may occur a situation where steps are reversed, resulting in a situation of uncompleted works, bringing a problem that the working efficiency is impaired.
Moreover, for example, when an order (print order D) of printing a high-volume copies (3000 copies) with a plurality of printers in a distributed manner is submitted, there can be a case where the print job is scheduled so as to be divided for a plurality of printers and printing is performed in parallel in a distributed manner as follows:    2000 copies by a high-speed printer A; and 1000 copies by a medium-speed printer. For this reason, it is necessary to perform proof printing with two printers. However, if their schedules are not associated with each other, there can be a case where confirmation works of proof printing need to be performed in different time slots, bringing a problem that the working efficiency is impaired.
Moreover, in the conventional scheduling system, confirmation result of proof printing that is an important process step in the workflow and a schedule of the automatic regular print job are not cooperated. That is, determination of confirmation result and final scheduling of the automatic regular print job is done in a mode where a human worker (mainly an operator) does these tasks. Therefore, for example, when the operator prioritizes an appointed day of delivery and has determined (registered) a printer used for printing and a schedule (start time and date and a use period) of executing automatic regular print job in advance (i.e., case where a proof printed matter is sent to an order client to receive confirmation, but it is expected that an answer is delayed and other cases), the automatic regular print job will be executed when the date comes to a predetermined time and date even when the confirmation work has not been completed. Moreover, when the operator does not fully understand operating procedures of the scheduling system, a human operational mistake (operator's failure in confirmation after scheduling, erroneous registration without confirmation, etc.) will be likely to occur. Therefore, the conventional system is poor in the stringency of the important confirmation work and could not solve sufficiently problems that existed before the scheduling system is introduced.
Moreover, in the conventional scheduling system, a printer to be used and a schedule (start time and date and a use period) whereby the automatic regular print job is executed are not determined until a confirmation step is completed. For this reason, there is a problem that the working efficiency becomes poor because scheduling (assignment of operators, use reservation of mechanical resources) of working steps (printer or inserter installation to a supply inlet of another printer, processing of a bookbinding machine, processing of a cutting machine, processing of packaging) after the print step in the workflow are delayed. The efficiency degradation is evident especially in environments where operators specialized in respective steps (printing setting step, printing execution step, bookbinding step, cutting step, packaging step, etc.) are arranged for division of printing.
Moreover, if there occurred an excess in the processing time of an arbitrary automatic regular print job or a failure of a printer and rescheduling becomes necessary, another automatic regular print jobs following the automatic regular print job are adjusted in a mode of giving additional delay. Furthermore, when the automatic printing cannot be executed because conditions are not satisfied or because of other reasons in automatic scheduling, the printing state reduces to a printer non-assigned state (a suspended state of no schedule where an outputting printer and a date to perform printing are not determined and the regular print job will not be executed automatically). For this reason, rescheduling is conducted always in a direction of delaying a start time, i.e., in a direction of suspending the automatic regular print job, which brings a problem that the working efficiency becomes degraded.
Moreover, when an order is for high-volume printing or requirement of print quality is high, the printing contractors use proof printing heavily. Such a case creates a situation where a lot of outputted matters are generated since the proof printing is performed repeatedly as needed. However, strict control is not given to the printed matters of proof printing that is excluded from delivered goods for customers. Moreover, there exists no system for supporting management of the outputted matters of proof printing and a processing flow. As a result, the outputted matters of proof printing are often left uncontrolled in a stack. Therefore, in the case where a target order is a security job (a job of an order that the customer requires security protection, consideration against information leakage, and privacy regarding the contents of a printed matter), stacking and uncontrolled leaving of the printed matter of proof printing causes a problem and there is a problem of ensuring its security.